Carrot baby food

Carrots were Oscar's second food, after organic baby oatmeal. I didn't choose carrots for any particular reason other than the fact that we received some beautiful, sweet red ones in our CSA basket.

What I did:
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1. Scrub and peel the carrots. This took quite awhile because they were fairly small. I wouldn't normally peel sweet little carrots like this, but I read on Wholesome Baby Food that babies can have a hard time digesting carrot peels. I was surprised upon peeling the gorgeous red carrots to find that they pretty much looked like regular carrots inside.
2. Slice the carrots into 1cm pieces and put them in a steamer basket. Cook, covered, over boiling water for approximately 15 minutes or until they were easily pierced with a fork.
3. Transfer carrots to food processor or blender and puree. I used a food processor and didn't need to add any liquid to get a smooth puree, but your milage may vary.
4. Freeze any puree you will not use within 3 days. I used an ice cube tray.
5. To serve, thin the puree to a consistency that works for your baby with water, breast milk, or formula

The verdict?

I thought that they were delicious, and would have happily eaten the whole bowl with a little salt, pepper, and butter. Oscar, on the other hand, was not impressed. We tried them on two consecutive days and he rejected then after the first bite each time. We'll give him a break from the carrots and try again in a week or two.

CSA basket: Week 2

Today I received our second basket from Bryson Farms. Here's a list of what we received:

1. Mixed baby salad greens
2. Micro-greens (x2)
3. Cauliflower
4. Rapini
5. Purple, yellow, and red carrots
6. Golden beets
7. Fingerling potatoes
8. Honey boat delicata squash
9. Kale
10. Garlic
11. Hakurei turnips
12. Milan turnip
13. Something that looks like white carrots (carrots, or parsnip, or turnip, or radish?)

I'm super happy that we got more salad greens, and I'm looking forward to the cauliflower. We haven't eaten last week's turnips yet, though, so I'm feeling a little buried in them. We're having some people over for dinner tomorrow, though, so I'll look for a recipe for them. Maybe in a mash? I'm planning on roasting a bunch of root veggies as well; should be good! We're serving roast beef as the main!

I'll have to take a taste of the white vegetable to see if I can tell what they are. If not, I'll send an e-mail to the farm and ask!

Karey's all-purpose vinaigrette

This is my go-to salad dressing. We use it on pretty much every salad we have, excepting Caesar and taco salads. It's fabulous not just on green salads, but also on potato salads, pasta salads, and other veggie salads. The formula is adapted from my mom's recipe, which I believe was adapted from a Canadian Living recipe. I always make it in a mason jar for mixing and storage reasons; it keeps for about a week in the fridge. It's fun to try different variations on this formula; some are suggested in the recipe below. This makes enough for 2-3 Paul-and-Karey-sized salads, which is to say, quite large for 2 people. I'd guess it's enough to lightly dress 16 cups of greens.

What I use:

1 clove of garlic, pressed (Other possibilities: minced shallot)
1 Tbsp granulated sugar (Other possibilities: maple syrup, honey, brown sugar)
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard (Other possibilities: any fancy mustard you may have kicking around. Keen's is quite good)
1/2 tsp salt
Good grinding of black pepper
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar (Other possibilities: lemon or lime juice; cider, sherry, white wine or balsamic vinegar)
5 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil (Other possibilities: light olive oil, canola oil, walnut or other nut oil, avocado oil)

Combine all ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake away! Taste for balance and seasoning by dipping a leaf from the salad you are making; it's hard to tell by tasting the dressing straight.

Roasted beet and goat cheese salad

I made this salad for dinner the night we received our first basket from the Bryson Farms CSA. I've had a similar salad at one of my favourite restaurants in Ottawa, the Wellington Gastropub. This was actually the first time I've ever cooked beets, since Paul always thought that he didn't like them, and I thought that it would be really messy. Well, Paul loved them, and maybe it's just because they were golden beets instead of the regular red, but they weren't messy at all. The salad was fabulous; probably the best salad I've ever made, which is pretty amazing considering it's November. Here's how I made it:

Bryson Farms CSA

This week we signed up for a new CSA.

What's a CSA, you ask?

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Wikipedia describes CSA as:

"...a form of an alternative food network, ... (CSA) is a socio-economic model of agriculture and food distribution. A CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farming operation where the growers and consumers share the risks and benefits of food production. CSAs usually consist of a system of weekly delivery or pick-up of vegetables and fruit, in a vegetable box scheme, and sometimes includes dairy products and meat." 

In practice, what this means is that we make a weekly payment to our CSA that they use to invest in their farm. In exchange, we receive a percentage of the farm's harvest.

What about Bryson Farms CSA?

Bryson Farms is located in western Quebec. It's an organic farm that specializes in heirloom produce. Unlike most CSA's in our neck of the woods, Bryson Farms is able to continue delivering their produce to customers year round by using a combination of fresh, storage vegetables (like potatoes and beets), preserved produce (like frozen squash puree and roasted tomatoes) and greenhouse produce. Every Friday, we put our camping cooler on our front porch (complete with ice packs in the summer and blankets in the winter), and the good people from the Farm transform it into a veritable cornucopia by the time we get home from work (or at least that's the idea!). We took our first delivery this Friday. Take a look at what we got: